


Washing Up

by withinmelove



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Brienne is the Best, Caretaking, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 02:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12496608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withinmelove/pseuds/withinmelove
Summary: Instead of their heart to heart talk Jaime commands Brienne to bathe him. No surprise soft feelings develop between these two.





	Washing Up

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired entirely from Episode 5 of Season 3. 
> 
> I have a terrible weakness for writing bathing fics as you can tell from my other stories.

“Come over here and bathe me.” 

Times like this, Brienne resents the fact she shamed Jaime for wanting to give up. Gave him the will to live again. _Impudent, arrogant, selfish pri-_

“Well? I’m waiting. Hard to bathe with a bandaged stump.”

“Shut up,” she orders, grabbing the bar of lye soap and scrub brush. The soap is harsh and the hard brush unpleasant, but they’ve scrubbed the weeks of filth from her. They will do the job on Jaime too. The water sloshes as she walks over, unminding as his eyes touch over her nudity. If she was different, she would hide her small breasts and her smooth dark pubic hair. But she is Brienne, who doesn’t care a fig about what genitals a person may have. 

“Duck your head under the water. I’m starting with your hair,” she adds, rolling of her eyes when Jaime raises his eyebrows at the words. By the gods, this man thinks everything is to do with him having sex. Thankfully, he obliges without comment this time. When he resurfaces, his hair is plastered to his skull. No more shimmering gold, only muddy dishwater. Bri stands between his legs, scrubbing the bar over his hair as he holds the stump of his wrist aloft. 

She lathers up the disgusting mess of his hair, scratching with her stubby nails at his scalp. At once, Jaime sinks into her rough touch, resting his forehead against her torso just below her breasts. His eyes slide closed when she gently scratches around his ears, kneading his earlobes. Every single part of him needs to be scoured. 

“Dunk.” He blearily opens his eyes, pleading silently with her to continue. “ _Dunk_. Your hair needs another scrub.” At this, Jaime submerges under water while she hastily washes the suds away. Two more scrubbings with the soap before his hair is even close to its old sheen. By this point, he looks punch-drunk with exhausted contentment and he’s not even clean yet. 

“Have - have you been told you’ve got the hands of angels?” Jaime mumbles, pliant as she tips his head back.

Brienne shakes her head, soaping up her hands of an “angel”.

“Not once,” she answers, rubbing her soapy fingers carefully over his face, staying away from his eyes. _A shave afterwards_ Brienne mentally adds as she works the soap into the filthy tangle of his beard. 

“A shame,” he edges out from the corner of his mouth around the discolored suds sliding down his face. 

“Under.” 

When he resurfaces, it’s now that Brienne can see a small fragment of the beauty he used to possess. Before near-starvation, imprisonment and death carved away at his soft, smooth skin. 

“Can do you that again?” Jaime whispers. For a moment, all she can do is stare at him, taken aback. Never before has he been this soft spoken. Never without his armor of arrogance, clever words and, when pushed, despair. She cups his face between her large hands, and how he leans into her touch. Brienne strokes her thumbs over the high cheekbones that no doubt so many men and women have composed poems about. 

“My hands are not so mannish now, hm?” The silly jape slips out before she can stop herself. A hum low in his throat is the only answer. She’ll take that as agreement. So for a few minutes, Brienne strokes his face, brushing her fingers through his hair. Finally though, she urges him to his feet. 

“You’re still disgusting and not done being bathed.” 

All Jaime does is roll his eyes, too drowsy to retort back. This quiet version of him is a rather pleasant change. Again she rubs the bar of lye over his skin, this time followed by the scrub brush. A groan as he flinches from stiff bristles. 

“Stay still. You need this.” 

Good man; he stands still under her attention. Across his chest, over his broad shoulders and down his arms that are corded with muscles and back up to get his armpits as well. Now that gets him ticklish and shying away. Down his sides to his hipbones and across his stomach. He’s much less hairy than some other men she’s met. Thankfully, he is too malnourished and exhausted to get aroused as she exchanges the brush for her own soapy fingers to wash the stench from his pubic hair. 

“Closest you’ve ever come to touching a man no doubt,” Jaime manages to mumble, though his eyes are closed when she glances at his face. For that she should slap him, and not across the face, but she won’t. Not right now, anyway. If it was her in his place, she would want to be washed all over. She washes her hands in the water before pushing him to turn around. Up and down his back Brienne rubs the lye soap, before she’s scrubbing with the brush once more. Before she can get any farther than his lower back, Jaime turns around without her say-so. 

“I think I can manage to wash my own arse, dear Bri.” 

A shrug. So be it, if he wishes. 

“Sit and I’ll get your legs.” 

This he does without complaint, letting her rest his heel on her thigh as she washes up his legs without the brush this time. In spite of his hardship, Jaime’s legs are still muscular, light blond hair covering them entirely. 

Living the soldier’s life, she’s never been one fetishize feet or any part of the body. Not after weeks and months on the march. However, she might make an exception for Jaime’s. They are elegant with high arches and finely made toes that descend from big toe to smallest in an orderly line. She pushes her thumbs into those high arches, kneading the knots from his left foot first before moving onto his right. The reward is hearing Jaime lightly knocking his head against the ledge of the steam pool as he sags lower into the water. 

“If you’re going to faint right now, I will stop.” Brienne says, barely suppressing her smile when Jaime shakes his head. 

“No, no, keep on. Fully awake.” 

Brienne feels no shame lavishing attention on his feet until she’s worked out all the tension. When at last she lowers his right leg back into the water for a moment Brienne fears Jaime might have fainted after all, so still and peaceful does he look. One more washing of her hands before she reaches out for him. At her hand upon his jaw he slightly open his eyes. 

A relieved smile breaks over her face. “I am sure you don’t want to be known the first Lannister carried out of a bath by a woman. The Maid of Tarth no less,” Brienne teases as she offers him her hand. 

Jaime accepts her help of getting to his feet. “As Tyrion would say, there’s no better way to go out but in a woman’s arms.” 

There is the sarcastic man she has grown fond of.

**Author's Note:**

> So after I first watched the episode where Jaime and Bri are in the communal bath together I was taken over by the idea that she washes him up. And of course in my fashion I wrote in a very focused manner for two days on it and then got distracted with some other more interesting story. Finally I went back and finished this piece at 2 am on a school day.
> 
> Zilia my beta is the reason the story reads so nicely <3 Also she helped give me more Game of Thrones vocab I would have overlooked.


End file.
